Weili Shi is an artist who designs through the media of digital technologies. He creates unconventional experiences with the aim of provoking people’s consciousness. In his most recent work, Shan Shui in the World, he transformed the information of the buildings in Manhattan, NY, into traditional Chinese shan shui (landscape) paintings by a custom algorithm. This project revisits the ideas implicit in Chinese literati paintings of shan shui: the relationship between urban life and people’s yearning for nature, and between social responsibility and spiritual purity. With generative technology, Shan Shui in the World has the ability to represent any place in the world—including the city where the audience is—in the form of a shan shui painting. Weili Shi is currently a developer at Bluecadet and teaches at Parsons School of Design.
More info: shi-weili.com